Hawaii Gets Snow!

Hawaii Gets Snow! was Originally Posted on January 13, 2007 by lavarock

It is difficult enough to get people to believe that there is snow in Hawaii. Imagine then how difficult it is to get people to understand that there are two kinds of snow here; the while and cold type and the white and fragrant kind.

Because we have two 14,000 foot mountain peaks on the Big Island, the temperature up there hovers around 35 degrees or so. Give it a slight temperature drop and a bit of moisture and there you go, snow. The observatories up there have web cams so that they can evaluate the road conditions and it gives the rest of us an opportunity to see snow without actually having to get cold.

On a trip up there I took photos and wrote up the trip. It is online at http://snow.itskona.com

Then we come to the “other” type of snow, the fragrant kind. Kona snow is what we call the blossoms on our coffee trees. You awake one morning and all you see is blossoms on all the trees, looking quite like a fresh dusting of snow. You can almost count the months to picking time again.

I had an Ebay sale going for six 8 ounce bags of coffee and there is only one problem. Some people want whole bean and some prefer to get the coffee already ground and give it as a gift. Well, I had s buyer purchase 3 of these specials, so it is 6 bags of coffee I’m preparing. Unfortunately he didn’t specify what type he wants and I can’t reach him. I hate to ship an order like this without knowing. I still have 4 hours to get it to the Post Office before they close for the weekend.

On a different note, I spoke with a couple of my neighbors and we decided to package a bag of each of our coffees together and let customers try an assortment. We suggest they brew a bit of each and have a tasting party. Like wines, each Kona coffee has a different taste, some subtle and some not quite so. There is actually a taste wheel that allows people to qualify the coffee tastes that tend towards woody or earthy or fruity and so on.

The say that Hawaii is unique in that every kind of natural disaster finds its way here. We have blizzards that close some roads, the occasional thunderstorm and tornado, earthquakes, forest fires, hurricanes, draught, floods, landslides, the occasional lava flow and much more.

In associated news, there was an earthquake overseas last night and for a few hours, Hawaii was among places with a tsunami watch or warning. Our watch was eventually cancelled, but it is a bit unsettling to turn cable channel and channel and only see a Civil Defense warning. The waves would have hit Hawaii just after midnight and except for shoreline damage, most people would have been home fast asleep. Campers were directed away from the shores, also due to the high surf and high tide conditions. Last time a similar quake caused minor flooding and some damage to boats.

So I guess it is also the occasional tsunami you have to watch out for too, and that is no “snow job”